Inhuman degradation’s that others had to endure to secure a right to vote

With a government elected by its citizens and that effects every aspect of our lives from schools to health care to homeland security, voting is an important right in our society. By voting, you are making your voice heard and registering your opinion on how you think the government should operate.

Even if the candidate you loathe is destined to win in a landslide, you can make a dent in their margin of victory. That limits how much of a “mandate” they can claim once in office, encouraging them to promote more moderate policies so as not to jeopardize their re-election. Conversely, even if you know your preferred candidate will win, adding to her margin of victory can only help her advance her agenda in office.You still should vote in your election.

The writing is in a wall that might explain what other Nations had to go through just to secure a fundamental right to vote in contracts to our country, . To cite the importance of voting, we can rely on South African experience under Apartheid Regime.

Apartheid was “The system of racial segregation in South Africa implemented and enforced by a large number of acts and other laws. This legislation served to institutionalize racial discrimination and the dominance by white people over people of other races”. To divide and conquer, this regime created so called Homelands, for the purpose of concentrating the members of designated ethnic groups, thus making each of those territories ethnically homogeneous as the basis for creating “autonomous” nation states for South Africa’s different black ethnic groups . Black populations were moved permanently to prevent them living in urban white South Africa. This spells “inviting someone to your house and years later he regulates and assigns to you a bathroom as your permanent housing.

The creations of Bantu

Ernest Cole captures the humiliating experience of South Africans being subjected to inspection and the crime here was being in so-called “white areas”.TextbooksEtrade.com

Homeland Citizenship Act, 1970 which changed the status of the inhabitants of the homelands (blacks) and were no longer citizens of South Africa, meaning even at birth, I did not have inherit citizenship rights.,

My formative years were spent living under what the regime referred to as “State of Emergency”. As the crack in a system began to form, there were of course with the added off spin of propagandists and sort of imagery that would scare the white populace into support of the Apartheid system policies. Extreme white Afrikaner supremacist Group (AWB) begin to exact their own kind of intimidation activities –emulating scenes akin to Nazi Germany by killing political prisoners.

It is only through time or distance that we are exposed to other realities that make us question the legitimacy of what was deemed “normal” by South Africa from 1652 to 1994. My thought was one of empathy, however, following a series of tense negotiations and years of liberation struggle, the first democratic election took place in a festive atmosphere, on the 27th April, 1994. This election changed the history of South Africa. It paved the way towards a new democratic dispensation and a new constitution for that country. For the first time all races in the country were going to the polls to vote for a government of their choice. Nineteen political parties participated and twenty-two million people voted.

In Sum, citizens of many countries complain about the world around them, as South African since 1652 they didn’t have option to change that world. However, you do. The youth of America have the power to make decisions that can affect the country. If you don’t like the way America is run, and yet you don’t vote in elections or make your opinions heard, then you, not the government is at fault.

I hope you don’t take your voting rights for granted and realize the importance of voting: because with the power to choose what happens in this country, you make America stronger. You personally can make America a stronger country by making the electoral process better, and that means voting.